


All The Space In Between Us

by DefaltManifesto



Series: Kiss The Sky [3]
Category: Animorphs (TV), Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Child Soldiers, Childhood Trauma, Crying, Dissociation, Established Relationship, F/M, Heart-to-Heart, Interracial Relationship, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Series Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 08:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12077688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefaltManifesto/pseuds/DefaltManifesto
Summary: He wishes he were brave enough to ask for this gentle comfort in the harsh light of day. Hell, even if it were dark and she were conscious, that would be an improvement. He can’t though, something in his mind balking at asking for it from her even though she of all people understands the state of his mind and knows that he’s still just a scared boy filling a man’s body, even now.





	All The Space In Between Us

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this and now I wanna write 5 million more Animorphs fanfics and reread the whole series (also just figured out Marco is canonically bi hell yeah). 
> 
> Title from Kiss the Sky by Machine Gun Kelly, the song that this whole little series is based on. 
> 
> This is the "everything sucks but we have each other" interpretation

[The tumblr](http://schizzar.tumblr.com)

 

Jake wakes first. He always does, perhaps because of some animal instinct that’s somehow become engrained in him to know when the suns on the verge of rising. More likely, it’s the hyper-vigilance that comes with a PTSD diagnoses that shows no signs of ever getting better. Cassie stays asleep on the bed next to him, her usually worry lines smoothed out with sleep. He shifts on the bed, limbs tangling with hers as he allows himself a small moment of softness, head resting on her naked chest. She mumbles something in her sleep, arm curling around his shoulders instinctively.

He wishes he were brave enough to ask for this gentle comfort in the harsh light of day. Hell, even if it were dark and she were conscious, that would be an improvement. He can’t though, something in his mind balking at asking for it from her even though she of all people understands the state of his mind and knows that he’s still just a scared boy filling a man’s body, even now.

A scared little boy who’d ordered the death of his brother at the expense of his cousin.

A scared little boy who hadn’t spoken to his best friend in almost a decade.

A scared little boy who would visit the woods and sit in silence with a hawk.

The tears surprise him, splashing against Cassie’s dark skin as he begins to shake, his hand clenching tight around her hip. A ragged gasp tears free of his lips before he’s biting down, desperate to keep it in. It’s too late though. Cassie stirs beneath him, a soft murmur of his name barely registering in his ears as she strokes a hand down his head and then shushes him as she holds him close.

“Jake…God, Jake…”

Once he starts, he can’t stop. The tears spill out of him and he begins to sob, the noise animalistic and god he didn’t know he could make that noise with a human mouth. Cassie hisses as his nails elongate into something closer to claws and he skitters back, lunging to the end of the bed as his mind races, forcing the foreign DNA back into the depths of his modified biology. His eyes zero in on the two pinpricks of blood that slide down her hip.

“Cass-“

“Jake, it’s okay,” she says, rising up onto her knees and reaching for him.

He lets her grab him, shaking too bad to fight as she guides him back down onto the bed so he’s stretched out on top of her with her arms wrapped tight around him. His tears haven’t stopped, but he feels disconnected from them. They’re just a byproduct of the roaring in his ears and the desperate, cloying terror that plagues his every moment just under the surface of the face he shows everyone.

“I know, I know,” Cassie says. “You did what you had to Jake and no one blames you.”

It hits him then that he must be babbling. The wind in his head must be spilling out of him in words that make little sense but Cassie, well, she knows more than enough to peace it all together. How can he still be this guilty after all these years? How can he still be this terrified?

“Cassie…” His eyes ache. He’s not sure how much time has passed, but the sun is starting to peak through the blinds and he can see where the salt of his tears has dried on her skin. “What’s wrong with me?”

“You never got to be a child,” she says. Her voice shakes and a moment later, he sees her tears splash onto her own chest inches from his face. “None of us did.”

They started fighting a war at thirteen. The deaths of thousands of humans and millions of Yeerks rested on his shoulders by sixteen, and now at twenty-two at the beginning of a random day in the summer it was all hitting him at once. Had he really shut down for that long? He barely remembers the last six years, nothing but a blur of similar events over and over again punctuated by short moments of bone-deep fear when something prompted a sudden flash of memory or emotion.

“I don’t want this,” he whispers into her skin. “I can’t keep doing this.”

“Me neither,” she says, fingers trailing down his spine. “Every day feels like a chore, every conversation recycled, every meal a necessity…and I miss you.”

Pain squeezes around his heart and sinks into his bones because he misses her too. Misses what they were, maybe what they still could be if they weren’t both so beaten and scarred.

“I miss you too,” he says. He pushes himself up and stares down into her brown eyes. There’s emotion there, pain and hurt and longing. He hasn’t seen it in her eyes in who knew how long. “How often does this happen with me? I don’t really have all the clear of a grasp on it.”

“Every few weeks you seem to come out of it,” Cassie says. “Sometimes you remember and sometimes…well.” Her words wobble and he hates that he’s the cause of it.

“How can you still stay?” he asks. “You’re wasting your life waiting for me.”

His heart pounds as his thoughts race, guilt seizing him by the throat. Even now, he continues to harm the people he loves the most.

“It’s not a waste,” Cassie says, reaching up and cupping his face. “Jake, you understand me better than anyone else and you’re still you even when you’re dissociating or far away from me. Spending my life with you is not a waste. Ever.”

“But what if I never get better? What if I’m never the Jake you fell in love with?”

Cassie drags his face closer, pressing her forehead to his. “Neither of us are who were then and that’s fine, Jake. Do you still love me?”

Jake shuts his eyes, unable to meet Cassie’s gaze when he feels so undeserving of the love he sees there. “That’s the only thing I’m sure of.”

“Then that’s all we need. We love each other. The rest will work out.”

 _I swear I’ll be better one day,_ he thinks. _I’ll be strong enough for the both of us._


End file.
